The Goldspurs

Since the dawn of man on Faelon, communicating over great distances has served as one of the great challenges to rulership. As with many things in their culture, the Krai-Jan Empire first solved this problem through their control of the strange reptilian creatures of their lands known as the Zarn.
Almost immediately after taming the largest of the winged Zarn, the Daklos, the Emperor recruited a core of his best riders to serve as messengers. These men could reach any point in the Empire faster than any other means of conveyance. Ryshael is far too great a land to be covered by one Daklos’s continuous flight. Instead, these riders flew between posts in a network of aeries that allowed them to transfer their messages to new riders with fresh mounts. Upon their selection, these men were given ceremonial spurs of solid gold. Whatever name the Ruby Emperor may have initially used for them, ever since they have been known as Goldspurs.
THE GOLDSPURS GO NORTH
When the Traazorite Rebellion forged a new empire over the fallen Krai-Jan, the new Emperor kept everything he considered to be working. The Traazorite Goldspur network reached its zenith at their fortress known as Korolar, high in the Moonshadow Mountains. As the Faeler migration relentlessly pushed the Traazorites off the northern continent, the imperials would withdraw from their aeries and the Daklos, along with all of their Zarn, would retreat with them. The people who would become the Falkaarans, however, captured Korolar and its Daklos aerie intact. Here they discovered that Traazorite alchemists had found a way to breed Daklos impervious to Falkaar’s cold winters, explaining why only this aerie stood at such a latitude. While the process allowed them to continue breeding a few such creatures, it did not allow populating a kingdom-wide network. Isarshael’s newest ruler still faced the problem of communicating over great distances. While he did not have enough Daklos, the idea of the network still made sense and so early in his rule, Jorav Korsar decreed the building of way stations across Falkaar and selecting riders to carry important messages at top speed between them. Not one to fix what is not broken, the Falkaaran king referred to these horse-borne riders as Goldspurs.
THE 1ST COUNCIL OF TEHRADIM
Jorav worked to improve the Goldspur network in Falkaar during his reign. He even managed to connect it to the Traazorite Empire through the no-man’s-land along his southern border. His son continued this work, but the next major breakthrough came during the reign of Dagan Korsar, Falkaar’s third king. Shortly after Koronna broke away from the Empire, Dagan negotiated with the Lord Mayor of the now Free City of Tehradim to more fully connect the Kingdom of Falkaar with the new Kaliphate of Koronna. This effort proved so successful that the Councils of Tehradim have served as a model in solving international problems. As each new realm formed, the rules for behavior between monarchs would mature through the work of another Council.
GOLDSPURS TODAY
Now, forty generations after the first Goldspur rider set off across some part of Isarshael with their dispatches, the network ranges from the Barony of Falthar on Falkaar’s coast to the Symidian capital of Xarmungkor, and from the Sky City of Kuzaarl in the north to the Koronnan port of Kel-Dashir. The treaties of Tehradim that govern the riders say pretty much what they said at the first Council. The dispatches of a Goldspur are inviolate and the penalty for preventing a Goldspur from accomplishing their mission is death. These laws do not go unchallenged and certainly, they do not apply to every path the Goldspurs take, such as those through Urdaggar tribal lands. But for the most part, a Goldspur is going to arrive with their missives as expected.

During times of peace between the continents, it is possible for a Goldspur to leave the Sky City with a message and for that message to arrive unmolested at the city of Krish-mahot on Ryshael’s deep southern coast, a combined journey of over twenty-five hundred miles. In better years, teams of Goldpsurs race the route, with the current record set at just over eight days.